


The End of America

by SufferingIsAChoice



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast), Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, One Shot, Useless Lesbians, narration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SufferingIsAChoice/pseuds/SufferingIsAChoice
Summary: Keisha stops at a small diner for some breakfast, narrates to her wife, and overhears a small, everyday conversation between two girls.
Relationships: Alice/Keisha | The Narrator (Alice Isn't Dead), Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	The End of America

**Author's Note:**

  * For [revishawke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/revishawke/gifts).



The End of America.

Dear Alice,

It's surprisingly welcoming, out here on the Oregon shore, for a state that was founded by racists as a white enclave. A little kitschy, yes, don't get me wrong, but honest. There a lighthouse overlooking the town, right on the edge of the of a cliff, looking down on Arcadia Bay, like it is the very end of America. If a storm came here, off the water, or a tsunami, we would all die. We would not make it far enough inland to survive. This little welcoming town, and this little diner would all be washed away.

***

My truck is parked across the street. Bay and Creek, I read, written on the side, taking boxes of something to somewhere. It doesn't really matter any more, to me, at least. I'm sure it matters to someone, somewhere, looking at a spreadsheet, calculating their wealth. But I don't care about the boxes. I care about the truck. That truck is my way out of here, away from the end of everything, back to wherever you are, Alice, wherever you are out there in America. Out here. Whenever. Right now the waitress is smiling at me, giving me waffles, filling up my coffee. I smile at her. She seems nice, Joyce, I think I heard. But I am not watching her. I am watching my truck, because even here, on the edge of everything, they are out there. They are hunting me. Hungry, and unending. Thistle. They will take my truck, I worry, and keep me from finding you, my wife. I take a bite of my breakfast, and watch through the window.

A girl with blue hair comes in, and a beanie pulled low over her head. For a moment I look at her, as she talks to the girl in the grey hoodie, in the other booth. When I first saw that hoodie I was scared. Praxis, I thought, Oracles, I thought, but no, she is just a girl. I sip my coffee, thinking about seeing through time. There are Oracles on these roads. And worse, perhaps. Or better.

***

Arcadia Bay. Named after heaven, I think. A cop, some stoners, the two girls talking softly, listening to a bad jukebox, in a diner, all eating together, living their small lives. A trucker too, I think. He looks like a trucker, at least. What does a trucker look like? White? Male? Straight? I am none of those things, and yet here I am, driving my truck, looking for my wife. This is nowhere. I would believe death was here. Or perhaps the gods, at least. Some gods. A god.

***

The first rewind happens almost before I realize it. A second of deja vu, like someone is experimenting with my memories. But after Praxis, after Thistle, and Bay and Creek, and everything else, I can't believe that. My heart races, and I look around, as it happens again, and see the one other person reacting. The girl in the grey hoodie, looking around, like she's memorizing what she's looking at, or, rather, like she's looking at the blue-haired girl. I stand up, and then feel the time flow backward, pushing me back into my seat. I stand again, quicker this time, but once again I am pushed down. A cockroach crawls on the jukebox, a fight starts, a siren sounds outside, and a cup breaks. Over and over again, like I'm stuck in time. Food never eaten, fire never consuming.

***

One day Arcadia Bay will end. This is only a tragedy if framed in the context of loss. Arcadia Bay will end in fire, or tsunami, or storm, or gentrification. Maybe the oceans will rise, or maybe just it will be abandoned, until only the deer and crows remain. This is not a tragedy. I do not get to decide when a place will end, I do not know when it will end, but I know that it will all the same.

Every place will end, and be abandoned, eventually, given enough time. America itself will end. For some this is tragedy, for others salvation. This is not prophecy, or prediction, however, but rather statement of fact. We will not always be here. Nothing will. All our stories will finish, at some point, yours and mine, Alice.

***

On the third or forth try I reached her. She did not see me, as she kissed the other girl, with the blue hair. And then one last time time was running backwards, pushing me into my seat.

"Wait!" I called, as I stood from my seat, and everyone in the diner looked at me. "You don't have to rewind again, she feels the same way about you."

"I know," the girl in the hoodie said, looking up at me with an expression I did not understand. "But not yet."

Time ran backwards one last time, and when it started again, I walked out of the diner, leaving the Two Whales and the two girls behind me. I did not know their story. I knew nothing about their story, other than that it would end. Every story would, even yours, Alice, wherever it is, on these highways, between the Thistle Men, and Praxis, and Bay and Creek, and me.

I climb into my truck, and start it, pulling away from this little town of Arcadia Bay. I do not understand this town, Alice. I may never understand. But I know that now, and, as I drive past the lighthouse, looking down on us all, I am comfortable knowing what I know, and not knowing what I don't. There were two girls in love, Alice, much like you and me, a long, long time ago. But their story is not ours, as briefly as they intersected. I wish them well, and I will find you, Alice. I promise, until the story's end.

**Author's Note:**

> A one shot, because I needed a distraction today and my mind is too fuzzy to actually write my nanowrimo project.
> 
> <2


End file.
